Pain Assessment Tools

Pain assessment tools help patients describe their pain. The pain scale is one tool commonly used to describe the intensity of the pain or how much pain the patient is feeling. The pain scales include the numerical rating scale, the visual analog scale, the categorical scale, and the pain faces scale (see diagram below).

On the numerical rating scale, the person is asked to identify how much pain they are having by choosing a number from 0 (no pain) to 10 (the worst pain imaginable).

The visual analog scale is a straight line with the left end of the line representing no pain and the right end of the line representing the worst pain. Patients are asked to mark on the line where they think their pain is.

The categorical pain scale has four categories: none, mild, moderate, and severe. Patients are asked to select the category that best describes their pain.

The pain faces scale uses six faces with different expressions on each face. Each face is a person who feels happy because he or she has no pain or feels sad because he or she has some or a lot of pain. The person is asked to choose the face that best describes how he or she is feeling. This rating scale can be used by people age 3 years and older.

Representative samples of pain intensity rating scales

Numerical Scale

Visual Analog Scale

No pain		Worst pain
	Directions: Ask the patient to indicate on the line where the pain is in relation to the two extremes. Qualification is only approximate; for example, a midpoint mark would indicate that the pain is approximately half of the worst possible pain.

Categorical Scale

Pain Faces Scale

Adapted with permission from Whaley L, Wong, D. Nursing Care of Infants and Children, ed 3, p. 1070. ©1987 by C.V. Mosby Company. Research reported in Wong D, Baker C. Pain in children: Comparison of assessment scales. Pediatric Nursing 14(1):9-17, 1988.

INTRODUCTION

TREATMENT

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